Razer, maker of gaming peripherals and components, has some announcements today that are a big departure from their previous products.

First we have the announcement of an open VR standard, the Open-Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) ecosystem. Razer is contributing to this with the OSVR Hacker Dev Kit, "a virtual reality device and open-source software that enables programming for any variety of VR technology". The kit will be shipping in June for $199. There's a lot more information about this new VR platform on the Razer's OSVR page.

Next we have Forge TV, an Android gaming device for the living room that Razer says is "powered by a quad-core processor and gaming-grade graphics", which doesn't sound like your usual streamer.

Essentially a high-powered tablet in a box, the Razer Forge TV has impressive specs for an Android device:

Corsair has just announced sixteen (!!) USB 3.0 flash drives, across four product lines. The Corsair Flash Voyager Slider X1 is the cheapest per gigabyte and supports read speeds of up to 130MB/s. The Corsair Flash Voyager Slider X2 increases the cost per gigabyte by about 25 to 33 percent (depending on the capacity) and boosts maximum read speeds to about 200MB/s.

The next pair of product lines are even more high-end. Once again, the cost per gigabyte increases with the Corsair Flash Voyager GS, which has maximum read speeds of about 260MB/s and maximum write speeds of 105MB/s. Finally, the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX is the top model, with read speeds of up to 450MB/s and write speeds up to 200MB/s. The Voyager GTX contains an on-device SSD controller, as did the 2014 model that Allyn reviewed earlier this year.

The product details are as follows (all prices are MSRP in US dollars):

Powerline networks are not the most popular, especially with advancements in wireless technology, but they are still being actively developed. TP-LINK specifically mentions a few use cases: going through cement or certain soundproof walls, going across metal beams and studs, and going further than is practical under FCC broadcast power limits.

Today at CES, TP-LINK has announced the TL-PA8030 AV1200 Gigabit Powerline networking adapter. This product differentiates itself from previous offerings with “HomePlug AV2 MIMO”, which is an acronym that is normally applied to wireless technology with multiple antennas. It is basically the same thing in this case, because the adapter uses all three prongs.

Basically, how electrical sockets work is that you have two main prongs, one of which has an alternating voltage applied to it that averages out to about ~115V RMS over a cycle (relative to the other prong). When that wire is connected to a second one, at whatever is considered “neutral” voltage, it creates an electrical current with that drop (or rise) in voltage. A third plug, which is held at the ground's voltage, takes away any excess buildup from friction, wires that are shorted to the case, and so forth.

For this product, this means that one connection will be on the same circuit as a high-voltage, 60Hz signal, and the other will be mixed with ground noise. Keep in mind, the alternative to powerline networking is broadcasting on unregulated, wireless spectrum, so humanity is not afraid to send a signal through some nasty noise. Still, it is good to stop and think about what these engineers have been able to accomplish: broadcasting two signals, down two really nasty (and in different ways) circuits, and combine them for increased performance with multiple devices.

This out of the way, the specifications themselves are brief: it is three Gigabit (1.2 Gbps total) network connections that communicate through A/C plugs. It is backwards compatible with older TP-LINK HomePlug AV adapters (AV1000, AV600, AV500, AV200, and of course other AV1200s).

No pricing information, but TP-LINK is targeting Q3 2015 for this AV1200.

While yesterday's TP-LINK Archer C2600 and C3200 routers were designed for multiple devices, this one seems a bit more targeted at fewer, but still high-performance connections. The TP-LINK Archer C9 router can operate on one, 5 GHz block and one, 2.4 GHz chunk at the same time (versus the two 5.0 GHz and one 2.4 GHz distribution of the C3200).

A bit more specifications have been released, compared to the C2600 and C3200. A 1GHz, dual-core processor will perform the back-end computation to send the data where it needs to go. It will also have one USB 3.0 port (side) and one USB 2.0 port (rear), which are used to network-attach printers and storage.

Yesterday, D-Link announced two new gigabit-class powerline networking adapters. Powerline networking, which sends a signal between A/C outlets, is for users who want high-bandwidth connections in places that WiFi does not reach and running a cable is out of the question. The SKUs are basically identical, except that the DHP-601AV has a maximum rated bandwidth of 1,000 Mbps, while the DHP-701AV can go up to 2,000 Mbps... sort of.

You see, unless I am completely misreading the specifications, the only way into this device is a single Gigabit Ethernet socket. The technical difference is that the higher-end model can use the ground plug as a network path, presumably balancing between the “two powered” and the “one power, one ground” circuits based on line quality. That is interesting technology that will help in situations where a gigabit link cannot normally be maintained on a two-prong network but, if it is behind a gigabit bottleneck, that is kind-of not right to advertise, isn't it?

Again, I could be wrong, but the specs seem to claim one, single-socket, Gigabit Ethernet plug.

As for pricing and availability, D-Link does not disappoint. The D-Link AV2 PowerLine Starter Kits will be available in Q1 of this year. The DHP-701AV has an MSRP of $129.99 while the DHP-601AV is set at $79.99.

Intel's “Perceptual Computing” initiative, later branded Intel RealSense 3D, is beginning to be integrated with consumer electronics. For a while now, developers could pick up a Creative Labs-produced SDK with a camera, depth sensor, and dual microphones (in an array) for $99 USD. We will probably hear more about it tomorrow during Intel's CES 2015 Keynote at 7:30pm EST. Hopefully, they will also have some compelling software to go along with it.

This is the previous model. For the new version, see the video below.

But this announcement is from Acer, which will launch a new Aspire V 17 Nitro notebook with a built-in Intel RealSense 3D camera. The company believes that the technology will be used for controlling games, or scanning your face and objects for 3D printing. I'm... not so sure about printing my face, but I could see facial recognition being an interesting feature of upcoming software, even if it is not good enough for secure authentication purposes.

The laptop itself will be built on a Haswell-based Core i7-4710HQ that is paired with a GeForce GTX 860M GPU (4GB GDDR5). It can be configured with up to 16GB of system memory, up to 256GB of SSD space, and up to a 1TB secondary hard drive. As the name suggests, the display is a 17-inch IPS panel, which is apparently not a touch-screen.

The Acer Aspire V 17 Nitro will be available this month, but no pricing information is available. The previous model is still on Acer's website for $1400 USD, without RealSense 3D.

Now that you have read Josh's article detailing the new Maxwell based Tegra X1 you might be wondering what products it could appear in, apart from an updated Shield. DigiTimes has a theory based on the current lawsuits against Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm which claim that those companies have infringed several fairly basic patents which NVIDIA holds including object texture, lighting, shading, GPGPU and vertex operators. If the lawsuits were successful the cost of purchasing chips from those two competitors could increase making the new Tegra X1 a more financially attractive product, even with the associated costs of changing hardware. If the power and performance expectations of the new mobile Maxwell chip are met then NVIDIA's new chip could also become a more attractive alternative for vendors as it could well outpace the next generation of chips from Qualcomm and Samsung regardless of the outcome of the lawsuits. If you like speculation you can peek in at DigiTimes posting here.

"To find new outlets for its GPU business, Nvidia has started licensing its GPU architecture to other application processor (AP) designers. Kepler was the first GPU platform Nvidia offered for licensing and its latest-generation Maxwell will also become available for licensing later."

Lenovo, in a joint venture with NEC, is bringing the world's lightest notebook and the world's lightest convertible to market. And as the first products from the joint venture to be released outside of Japan, the new LaVie Z HZ550 notebook and LaVie Z HZ750 convertible are impressive.

Both 13.3-inch devices are constructed of a magnesium-lithium body with custom Mg-Li reinforcements to create a sleek looking and lightweight PC that does not compromise strength versus other magnesium alloy products. The HZ550 and HZ750 measure 16.9mm thick and weigh 1.72 pounds and 2.04 pounds respectively.

The notebooks feature a 13.3" WQHD display, YAMAHA audio, stereo mic and 720p webcam. There are two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI video output, SD card reader, and headphone jack along the edges (and the notebook is just big enough for those full size USB ports). Other features include a dual hinge design reminiscent of other Lenovo (Yoga) products, a chiclet style keyboard, and a wide touchpad sans physical buttons. The dark frame has an angular design. The HZ750 adds a lightweight film touchscreen (no cover glass) and a 360-degree hinge to allow tablet mode.

The Lenovo NEC LaVie Z PCs are powered by Intel's latest Broadwell-U Core i5 processors, 4GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD. The HZ750 can further be upgraded to a Core i7 and 8GB of RAM. Both PCs feature 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The HZ550 notebook is fitted with a 29.6 Whr battery while the HZ750 has a 44 Whr battery.

The LaVie Z HZ550 and HZ750 will be available in May starting at $1,299 and $1,499 respectively. They are slick looking notebooks and the magnesium-lithium frame is interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how they stack up and what else Lenovo NEC has in store (the joint venture agreement was recently extended to 2026).

Yesterday, Lenovo rolled out updates to its entire line of ThinkPad laptops, and today Lenovo is unveiling an update to its business-focused ThinkPad Yoga tablet. The update brings a hardware refresh to the 14-inch ThinkPad Yoga while also adding new 12-inch and 15-inch convertibles.

The new ThinkPad Yoga builds upon last year's model, maintaining the look and feel but updating the internal hardware. It now spans from a 12-inch 3.3 pound tablet to a 15-inch 5.07 pound convertible with enough space for a numerical pad. All models are less than an inch thick, with the 12" being the thinnest at 0.7".

ThinkPad Yoga 12

Display resolution options are capped at 1920 x 1080 across all models, but they are IPS panels with touchscreens.

Port options include two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, one HDMI, and a card reader. A Mini HDMI port is used on the smallest ThinkPad Yoga.

ThinkPad Yoga 14

Lenovo has chosen Broadwell-U to power its business tablets, and you will be able to get up to a Core i7 processor. All models have access to the Intel HD Graphics, and the 14-inch and 15-inch tablets can be configured with dedicated graphics from NVIDIA. The 12-inch and 14-inch ThinkPad Yogas can be equipped with up to 8GB DDR3L while the Yoga 15 can accommodate 12GB and 16GB configurations. Storage options include mechanical, SSHD, and SSDs with storage topping out at 1TB for spinning platter and 512GB for solid state drives (not available on the Yoga 12). Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 b/g/n or 802.11ac Wi-Fi (depending on the Wi-Fi+BT combo card), and a 1x NGFF slot.

The new ThinkPad Yoga will be available in February with starting prices at $999 for the Yoga 12, $1,199 for the Yoga 14 and Yoga 15.

The new Yoga 14 has a slight $50 premium over the starting price of last year's ThinkPad Yoga 14, but the new Yoga 12 comes in much cheaper and the larger Yoga 15 can be had for the same price as the new 14-inch model. Many of the popular features are staying the same, including the Lift 'n Lock keyboard, but you are also getting the latest CPU and GPU technology so in all it is likely worth it. Stay tuned to PC Perspective for more information on these machines as we get closer to the launch date.

Last year, Lenovo showed off the flagship Yoga 3 Pro with a watchband hinge. Now, Lenovo is using CES to officially launch the non pro Yoga 3. The Yoga 3 will be available in 11-inch and 14-inch models running Windows 8.1 and Intel's latest mobile processors.

The Yoga 3 11" comes in at 2.4lbs and 0.6" thick while the Yoga 3 14" weighs 3.5lbs and 0.7" thick. Both variants use the traditional dual hinge design which supports all the usual modes (laptop, tent, stand, and tablet). Notably, the watchband hinge has been reserved for the Pro variant. You will be able to pick up a Yoga 3 in either white or orange with either a 11.6" or 14" 1920 x 1080 resolution touchscreen IPS displays. Audio is handled by two 1.5W JBL speakers (Waves Audio certification) and is complemented by a 720p webcam for videoconferencing.

The Yoga 3 is powered by either an Intel Core M processor (11-Inch) or a 5th Generation Core i5 or i7 (Broadwell-U) processor (14-Inch) along with up to 8GB DDR3L memory, Intel HD graphics (and optional NVIDIA graphics on the 14-Inch Yoga 3), and 128GB or 256GB SSD or 500GB+8GB flash SSHD storage options. The 11-inch Yoga 3 is fitted with a 34Whr battery while the 14-inch tablet gets a larger 44Whr battery. Both models support Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

The Lenovo Yoga 3 14-inch has a dedicated graphics option from NVIDIA.

Aside from the higher resolution display options, watchband hinge, and a sliver of thin-ness, you aren't missing out on much with the Yoga 3. The 11-inch and 14-inch are notable updates over the Yoga 2 line and look to be good little machines. In particular, the 14-inch Yoga 3 with NVIDIA graphics and up to a Broadwell-U Core i7 is quite the powerhouse for a convertible!

The Yoga 3 will be available in March starting at $799 for the 11-inch and $979 for the 14-inch respectively. I am looking forward to seeing the reviews on these!

Back in October of last year, Lenovo launched several new eight and ten inch Android and Windows tablets under the Yoga Tablet 2 line. Today, Lenovo is adding another 8-inch tablet to that lineup with the differentiating factor being new "AnyPen" technology that allows you to use any pencil or regular pen for input, no need to use a special stylus. In fact, so long as it is conductive, you can use it as an input device!

Beyond the new touchscreen, the basic design and hardware configuration has not really changed with this new Yoga Tablet 2. You are looking at a 8.3" x 5.9" x 0.1" tablet with Lenovo's signature tubular side handle/battery holder/stand that weighs less than one pound. An 8-inch full HD display with 10-point multi-touch two speakers (Dolby Audio, Wolfson Master Hi-FI) and a 1.6MP webcam adorn the front while an 8MP rear camera (with auto-focus) sits on the underside of the device.

Alongside the onslaught of new notebooks and tablets, Lenovo is launching a limited edition Vibe X2 Pro smartphone and a new wearable accessory called the Vibe Band VB10. As an added bonus, Lenovo is also showing off a new "Selfie Flash" VIBE Xtension that will work with the Vibe X2.

The Lenovo VIBE X2 Pro is an amped up, limited edition, version of the VIBE X2 that debuted a few months ago. The X2 Pro takes the layered aesthetic further by moving to a larger (but thinner) full metal body with unique color options. It features a 5.3" 1920 x 1080 resolution display, dual 13MP cameras (with support for the Selfie Flash accessory), Android Lollipop support, and tweaked internals. The phone measures 146.3 x 71 x 6.95mm and weighs 140g. The Pro version features champagne gold, electric blue and rock pink color options compared to the white, champagne gold, and red colors of the non-pro Vibe X2.

The phone will run the company's VIBE UI 2.0 on top of Google's Android Lollipop operating system.

In all, the Vibe X2 Pro has a larger display, better camera, bigger battery, new colors, a metal body, and different CPU/GPU.

The limited edition VIBE X2 Pro will be available in China and Europe (specific countries will be announced at a later date) for $499 starting in April 2015. Notably, this smartphone will not be available in the US.

The VIBE Band VB10 is a wearable watchband accessory that pairs with the Vibe X2 (and also supports iOS devices). A metal bond and rubberized strap host a curved E-Ink display (230ppi) along with a battery that can reportedly power the Bluetooth radio and constantly powered-on display for seven days. The Vibe Band can display messages and notifications, be used to accept or reject phone calls, act as a warning if go out of range of your phone, and collect data (steps, calories, distance, and sleep) for a fitness app that can graph your performance and set personalized goals.

The wearable weighs about 30 grams and runs Android 4.4. Further, the VB10 is IPX7 rated as being waterproof up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.

The Vibe Band VB10 will be available in April (China and Europe) for $89.

Finally, Lenovo showed off a new Vibe Xtension called the Selfie Flash. The Selfie Flash plugs into the audio out of the Vibe X2 and X2 Pro to illuminate self portraits in low light environments. The circular add-on is synchronized to the Vibe X2's shutter and a ring of eight LEDs cast diffused light over a one meter distance according to Lenovo. It is rated at 100 selfies per charge.

The new selfie-enhancing Vibe Xtension will be available in April for $29 in markets where X2 and X2 Pro smartphones are sold.

Unveiled today at CES, the Lenovo P90 is the first smartphone to use Intel's latest Atom Z3560 processor and 5-mode XMM 7262 modem. The smartphone pairs the high end hardware with a colorful body that weighs 156g and is a mere 8.5mm thick.

The Lenovo P90 brings Intel back to the Lenovo smartphone family following a year dominated by smartphones powered by MediaTek and Qualcomm SoCs. Unfortunately, like the K900 that came before it, the P90 will not be available in the United States. Now that I've crushed the dreams of some US readers...

On the outside, the P90 looks to be your average roughly rectangular smartphone with curved edges. Lenovo does manage to spice things up a bit by offering it in Lava Red in addition to Pearl White and Onyx Black. A large 5.5" 1920x1080 display dominates the front of the device. A 5 megapixel front facing camera sits above the display and a 13MP camera with flash and optical image stabilization (OIS) sits on the back.

The Lenovo P90 is powered by a 64-bit quad core Intel Atom Z3560 clocked at 1.83 GHz paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal flash storage. Lenovo is using the Intel XMM 7262 modem for cellular connectivity which is LTE capable and supports data speeds of up to 150 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload (obviously, dependent on carrier support, congestion, and signal strength, et al). A large 4,000mAh battery powers the P90.

Unlike the Vibe X2 Pro, the Intel-Powered P90 will ship with Android 4.4 KitKat. Obviously, the Atom-powered phone will have to use binary translation for many apps that are not available natively in x86-64, but the Z3560 should be plenty of hardware to handle that overhead even with the alleged 20%-40% performance hit.

The Lenovo P90 will be available in February for $369. It will hit China and Europe but not this side of the pond.

Are you interested in an Intel-powered smartphone? Do you care what the SoC is, or do you just want something with enough oomph to run your applications? I do wish Intel would be more aggressive in getting its SoCs into phones that will be available here, if only for more competition.

The new Strix Tactic Pro is a mechanical gaming keyboard designed for durability, and it looks the part.

Since switches obviously matter the Tactic pro will be available with a choice of black, blue, brown, or red Cherry MX switches. ASUS states that the keyboard “employs the highest-specification N-Key Rollover (NKRO) technology over USB and has 13 dedicated, easy-to-reach macro keys for fast and hassle-free command customization”. The F1 - F8 keys can also be reprogrammed for a total of 21 macro keys if you need them.

The Strix True 7.1 Channel Gaming Headset is on display at CES, and the "true" in the name isn't just marketing.

This gaming headset actually features 10 neodymium magnets and volume controls for each channel. This multi-drive mania promises "lifelike, immersive audio" and considering we're talking about 20 discrete drivers I have no reason to doubt these have that capability.

The headset's control also works as a USB sound card with in-game audio control

When Intel launched Broadwell-Y in November, branded Core M by that point, they had a 4.5W processor that was just a little slower than a 15W Haswell Ultrabook CPU. This is quite a bit of power efficiency, although these numbers are maximum draw and might not be exactly proportional to average power under load.

At CES, Intel has launched Broadwell-U, which takes this efficiency and scales it up to 15W and 28W SKUs. The idea is that the extra thermal headroom will scale up for extra CPU and GPU performance. These are all BGA-attached components, which means that these processors need to be physically soldered to the motherboards -- they are destined for OEMs.

As an example of Broadwell-U's increased performance, the Core M 5Y70 has a base frequency of 1.1 GHz that can boost to 2.6 GHz; the top-end Broadwell-U has a base clock of 3.1 GHz and boosts to 3.4 GHz. From Core i3 up to Core i7, regardless of TDP, each of these processors are dual-core with HyperThreading (4 threads total). There is also a single Pentium and two Celeron SKUs, which are dual-core without HyperThreading (2 threads total).

Its GPU receives a large boost as well, particularly with the 28W SKUs receiving Iris Graphics 6100, although Iris Pro Graphics (6200 and 6300) do not yet make an appearance. If we had access to the number of execution units and we assumed the same instruction-per-clock count as Iris Graphics 5100, we would be able to calculate a theoretical FLOP figure, but that is information that we do not have. It would make sense if it were 48 execution units, twice Core M and consistent with the official die shot that Intel doesn't actually identify by product number. This would give it about 845 GFLOPs of performance, or about an OEM NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (the retail GTX 460 cards were about 4% faster than the OEM ones).

It is also within 2% of Haswell's Iris 5100 theoretical GFLOPs, albeit with a 15% drop in clock rate.

From a features standpoint, the GPU is a definite step-up. It has “Enhanced” hardware support for VP8, VP9, and h.265 (HEVC) video and 4K UltraHD output, wired or by Intel WiDi. Broadwell's iGPU was designed with DirectX 12 in mind and supports OpenCL 2.0 -- leaving NVIDIA behind in that regard, since AMD added that API in last month's Omega driver.

Intel is slightly behind in OpenGL support however, claiming 4.3 compatibility while AMD is at 4.4 and NVIDIA is at 4.5. This could mean that these GPUs do not (unless a future driver changes this) support “Efficient Multiple Object Binding”, “Sparse Texture Extension”, or “Direct State Access”. Then again, they could support these features as extensions or something, because it is OpenGL and extensions are its thing, but you know -- they're obviously missing some part of the spec, somewhere.

This leaves Broadwell-H and Broadwell-K, high performance BGA and socketed LGA respectively, to launch later in the year. These products will have significantly higher TDPs and stronger performance, at the expense of battery life (a non-issue for the desktop-bound -K parts) and heat.

At some point, routers have stopped becoming a pure commodity device. Some manufacturers are differentiating themselves based on CPU performance or available RAM, while others compete on software features. In this case, TP-LINK is introducing two routers: one with four antennas, and the other with six. They are both designed around connection quality for multiple devices that are communicating simultaneously.

TP-LINK Archer C2600

The Archer C2600 is the four-antenna product that uses Qualcomm MU-MIMO EFX, which can connect to three devices at once. TP-LINK states that the platform can establish four connections, but they are reserving the fourth to assist the other three by somehow reducing interference. They do not provide details about their specific process (whether it's constructive interference, choose the best signal, etc.) and I do not have a deep understanding of practical implementations in this area.

TP-LINK Archer C3200

The Archer C3200 is the six-antenna SKU that can operate on three bands simultaneously. Rather than sharing a single chunk of the 5.0 GHz spectrum, or dropping some devices down to 2.4 GHz, it can manage two segments of 5.0 GHz simultaneously (and a third at 2.4 GHz). As the number of connected devices increase, the router will automatically assign them to the best block.

Both routers also include Gigabit Ethernet for wired networks, and USB 3.0 ports (they do not state how many) to attach storage to. The C3200 advertises “Substantial RAM” without providing any hard numbers.

No pricing information is currently provided, but they are expected to be available in Q3 2015.